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Five Architectural Easter Eggs Hiding on Gothic Cathedrals
The modern use of the term "easter egg"—not the holiday treat but rather a hidden joke or surprise item inserted in a piece of media—originated with Atari in 1979, when a developer snuck his name into...
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Secrets of Puebla Tunnels in Puebla, Mexico
In the alley of Cinco de Mayo Road there's a doorway leading underground that looks to be an entrance to a subway. But in Puebla there are no subways. It is in fact the tiny entrance to a recently...
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Beecher Bible and Rifle Church in Wabaunsee Township, Kansas
The date on this simple stone church is 1862, but its story began a few years earlier. It was 1856, and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, an abolitionist preacher and brother of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” author...
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One Architect's Spectacular Vision for a Spherical Subterranean City
Imagine if underneath major metropolises there were spherical nuclear shelters that contained more cities—mini-Manhattans buried thousands of feet in the ground.In the 1960s, architect and city planner...
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Miniature World in Victoria, Canada
The Empress is the most famous hotel in Victoria, maybe in all of British Columbia. It has a long and storied history, full of everything a grand hotel needs—elegance, high tea, a touch of royalty, and...
View ArticleNo One Knows Why Used Toilet Paper Keeps Getting Dumped on This Florida Lot
A couple of months ago, at a city-owned lot in Bradenton, Florida, resident John Lundin started noticing something strange. The lot had always attracted homeless residents as well as some illegal...
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Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Cold War tensions spiked in 1977 as the Soviet Union broke ground on its new embassy compound by the U.S. Naval Observatory. Media reports fearfully prophesied about the spy implications of the...
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From Tufting to Jingles, the Evolution of Modern Carpet
A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.I have a song stuck in my head right now. A jingle, really.It’s been stuck in my...
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Gravity Hill in Prosser, Washington
On a lonely stretch of road north of Prosser, Washington, at the "base" of a small incline, if you shift your car into neutral you will, as if by magic, begin rolling uphill. The reasons given for this...
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A Scientist Invented the Cyanometer Just to Measure the Blueness of the Sky
The cyanometer, invented in the 18th century by the Swiss scientist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, had one evanescent purpose: to measure the blueness of the sky.In 1760, when he was 20 years old,...
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Wilbur D. May Museum in Reno, Nevada
There is only one place in Nevada where you will find a shrunken human head, taxidermy animals, Egyptian tomb artifacts, antique firearms, and well-endowed Polynesian fertility statues under one roof....
View ArticleFound: Enormous Alligator Going for a Stroll
Some of us like a good stroll through the grass. So do giant alligators, apparently.The Lakeland PD, which calls the alligator "HUGE GINORMUS VERY LARGE," reports that Lakeland local Kim Joiner...
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Frederick Douglass's House, Cedar Hill in Washington, D.C.
Washington is an African-American city with all-too-few monuments to its greatest African-American citizens. Cedar Hill is one of the finest. Abolitionist, author, political giant, and escaped slave...
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Saint Catherine Russian Orthodox Church in Roma, Italy
There are over 900 churches in the city of Rome, but this one is far different from all the others.In 2004 the Church of the Great Martyr Saint Catherine became the first Russian Orthodox church built...
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Chinese Police Destroy Fake Terracotta Army
Police in Xi'an, capital of China's Shaanxi Province recently raided an illegal replica of the world-famous Terracotta Army, and leveled it to rubble. That’s what happens when you try to fool...
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Paracuellos Massacres Cross at the Madrid Airport in Madrid, Spain
Anyone that looks out the plane window during arrival or take off at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport will see the huge white cross painted on a hill right beside the runway. It gives some...
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In the 1970s, the U.S. Navy Tried to Talk Like Whales
In the summer of 1974, a pod of pilot whales swimming near California's Catalina Island heard some unexpected sounds. Coming through the water was a familiar set of messages—swooping whistles, keening...
View ArticleListen to the Low Earthly Hum of a Candle Pipe Organ
Right now, there's a curious low industrial hum emanating from what used to be a fish market built in 1769. At De Vishal gallery in Haarlem, Netherlands, a large nine-pipe organ operated by burning...
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Two Russian Icebreakers Are Currently Stuck In Sea Ice
On December 14th, two Russian cargo ships set out from the port of Arkhangelsk, near the country's western border, about 3000 miles to Pevek, its northernmost point. With the help of two icebreakers,...
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Grave of John Wilkes Booth in Baltimore, Maryland
One of the top actors of his day, Booth assassinated President Lincoln on April 14, 1865 before being killed himself. But Booth had quite a journey on the way to death.After shooting the president,...
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